The U.S. Interior Department is sticking to it's determination that polar bears are merely threatened as a species, not endangered.
In a federal court filing Wednesday, the government declined to increase the protection level on the bears as environmental groups had urged. The groups have sued, in part seeking to have the bears listed as "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act, and in November a federal judge ordered the federal government to justify the "threatened" determination.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Interior agency that makes the determination, said essentially that the bears would have to be "on the brink of extinction" in order to justify the endangered determination, and cited other endangered species such as the snail darter that officials believe are worse off than the polar bear.
Polar bears "do not face a sudden and calamitous threat" and "are not a narrowly endemic species vulnerable to extinction from elevated threats," the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a memorandum.
"They face a serious threat, the loss of sea ice habitat, as the Service found when it made its listing determination, but they currently are not rare, on the brink of extinction or critically imperiled," the memorandum said. "They are, however, likely to become an endangered species in the foreseeable future."
The agency recently set aside more than 187,000 acres of Arctic coast as critical habitat for the polar bears, and that determination still stands. On Tuesday, the state said it would sue the government in 60 days if it did not reverse the critical habitat designation because the state believes it impedes oil development and thus harms the economy.
The Obama administration's refusal to increase the listing to endangered is a setback for conservation organizations seeking to protect the bears from climate change. But the lawsuit continues in federal court in Washington, D.C., and the environmental groups are expected to file their response in January.
" Rather than follow good science and the law, the Obama administration decided to follow the flawed policies of the Bush administration," Rebecca Noblin of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a press release. "Today's decision by Obama is a gift to the oil industry and big polluters that further undermines the credibility of his administration. The decision raises the bar for "endangered" status for species imperiled by global warming such that they will not receive full legal protections until they are already committed to extinction. President Obama could have appointed Sarah Palin as Secretary of the Interior and the polar bear would be no worse off than it is under Ken Salazar."
Contact Patti Epler at patti(at)alaskadispatch.com.